SCHUBERT: SONATA IN B-FLAT, OPUS POSTHUMOUS., D....

SCHUBERT: SONATA IN B-FLAT, OPUS POSTHUMOUS., D. 960. Valery Afanassiev, piano. ECM 829539-1 (digital). This third volume of live recordings from violinist Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Festival (1985) emerges as spontaneously wrought as the previous installments. Afanassiev, a last-minute replacement for another artist, must have been discomfited by the occasion. He treats this most fluent and rhapsodic of Schubert sonatas with mannered virtuosity, breaking down the line into a series of isolated incidents rather than considering the work as an integrated whole. Tempos incline to extremes, only the minuet capturing the properly Schubertian flavor.